Cincinnati Chili Comes To West Chester

It’s called compartmentalization, and even though it is an unsuitably long word, the idea seems to work pretty well.
In basic form, compartmentalization means sectioning off areas of your brain for certain functions – your artistic inclinations in one area, your rational attributes in another. In life, you could think of it as separating work from home. Extend things a little, and you get a separate compartment for how you deal with, say, people you knew when you were 10 and people you met when you were 30. Not everyone in the office can get away with calling you “Tubby,” after all, when your name is Dwight.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up the menu at a popular West Chester restaurant and saw the words, “Cincinnati Style 4-Way Chili” among the specials. (I’m not going to name the restaurant, since the management here has rules about the rank commercialization of its columnists, but suffice to say the place has a big beer kettle in the window and it used to be a Woolworth’s.)
Now -- outside perceptions to the contrary -- I do not know everything. Can’t recite the state capitals, lousy at balancing checkbooks, wouldn’t get past the first five when asked to name the schools of the Big Ten, etc. But there is one thing I know, and that is Cincinnati chili.
And I’m scared to death about it showing up in West Chester.
I was raised in Cincinnati, the Queen City of the Midwest thank you very much, and have been eating chili there since the age of 13, when I became man enough to walk into the neighborhood chili parlor on my own and ask for “two cheese, with.” And that would be two Cheese Coneys (bun, Vienna sausage, Cincy chili, onions, grated cheese) with mustard.
Full Disclosure No.1: On my bookcase next to photos of my mother and sisters, nieces and nephew, and oldest friends, is a framed picture of that very same chili parlor, the Skyline at the corner of Clifton and Ludlow. I look at it often.
Full Disclosure No. 2: As I type this, there is a four pack of canned Skyline Chili in the cupboard above my refrigerator, and I am thinking of cracking it open this evening for dinner.
Cincinnati chili is different than chili in any other part of the globe. It’s typically served on top of spaghetti with onions and cheese, and not in bowls like Texas chili. I’ve tried to get people from Chester County interested in it when they’re traveling through the Midwest, with varying degrees of success.
I won’t argue that it is the best chili available, but it is my favorite. I have been known to fly into Cincy for a visit, take the airport shuttle downtown, carry my suitcase four blocks to the nearest chili parlor and order lunch, before even saying hello to my family.
I’m not the only one. Sarah Jessica Parker, of “Sex and The City” fame, has her photo hanging on the wall at the Ludlow Skyline. Stop George Clooney from talking about the war in Iraq long enough and he’ll tell you whether he goes Skyline or Goldstar.
But will it play at the corner of High and Gay? We’ll see…
Next week: A 4-way in West Chester.